


The Dangers of Driving at Night

by xylodemon



Category: Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-08-09
Updated: 2005-08-09
Packaged: 2017-10-29 06:08:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,386
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/316618
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xylodemon/pseuds/xylodemon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Crowley teaches Aziraphale how to drive.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Dangers of Driving at Night

**Author's Note:**

  * For [zoemargaret](https://archiveofourown.org/users/zoemargaret/gifts).



> Written for [](http://slashfest.livejournal.com/profile)[**slashfest**](http://slashfest.livejournal.com/) 2005, Round I.

It was a very nice car, as far as those kinds of things went.

Aziraphale didn't pay much attention to cars in general, but then he didn't really need to. He wasn't one to travel or take holidays, and when he did need to go somewhere, it was much simpler to just will himself there. Driving meant worrying about things like traffic and petrol (not that Crowley seemed to worry overmuch about either), and driving required a car, which Aziraphale did not have.

He didn't want one[1]. But if he did have a car, he'd want one like Crowley's.

He'd paint his a different colour, of course. White, perhaps, or a nice blue. The sky over Eden before the fall had been a lovely shade of blue. Crowley's car was too dark, black inside and out, and that made it a bit too flash, especially when Crowley was leaning against it impatiently in that jacket and those sunglasses.

"You certainly took your time," Crowley said.

"You said seven," Aziraphale replied simply.

"It's been seven."

Aziraphale checked his watch and sighed. It had been seven, for twenty-three seconds.

"I'll remember that," Aziraphale warned. Crowley had a rather self-serving sense of punctuality. It only mattered when he was the one being made to wait.

"No, you won't," Crowley said, yanking open his door. "You're too bloody nice."

Aziraphale thought this deserved some kind of rebuttal. He started to form one, but Crowley leaned across his seat and glared through the car window.

"Get in, angel," Crowley hissed. Aziraphale paused; the expired parking meter alongside the Bentley became a letterbox just as a police car passed, and Crowley subsided slightly. "Please?"

Aziraphale sat, and the engine roared to life. "Where are we going?"

Crowley didn't reply. In fact, he didn't make a sound for nearly twenty minutes, except to growl at the tailback forming on the M25. He swerved toward the exit, slithering the Bentley through a worryingly small gap between two cars the next lane over, and he slammed a cassette into the Blaupunkt when Aziraphale told him to mind where he was going.

"My, we're in a mood tonight," Aziraphale commented, over Chopin's _Fat-Bottomed Girls_.

Crowley made a noise suspiciously like a snort.

"You still haven't told me where we are going," Aziraphale said. Crowley made another noise, closer to a grunt this time, and turned a corner. He turned another one shortly after, and Aziraphale suddenly recognized the neighbourhood.

"We're visiting Warlock," he realised, looking down at himself. His trousers were covered in dust from the bookshop and he didn't look much like Mr. Cantore at the moment. "Odd time for that, don't you think?"

Crowley continued to drive, silently, drumming his fingers on the steering wheel in time with the music. Aziraphale studied him for a moment, watching the streetlights stretch across his face and reflect of his sunglasses, waiting.

"I just feel like checking on the boy, all right?" Crowley said finally.

"Really," Aziraphale murmured. Crowley was the best liar there was, but after six thousand years, Aziraphale could usually tell.

"Besides, we should go over the plan," Crowley said. He turned the Blaupunkt down and Aziraphale was glad. He'd never liked this song. "His birthday is in two days."

"Two days," Aziraphale repeated, a bit nervously. "And your people are still sending the..."

"Hellhound."

"That's him."

"Yes," Crowley said. "It's arriving at three o'clock."

"Three o'clock my time, or three o'clock your time?" Aziraphale asked innocently.

"What do you mean by that?" Crowley demanded.

"Don't get upset," Aziraphale said. "Only, you've been running twenty minutes late since 1812."[2]

"That is not true, angel," Crowley snapped. "And even if it is, you can hardly blame me for it. 1812 was a very busy year. I'd just started a war, and... _fuck_!"

"What?" Aziraphale asked, wincing. The twenty-first century had done nothing for Crowley's language.

"You made me miss our turn," Crowley answered, slowing the Bentley to a stop. He closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and the car was suddenly facing the other direction.

 _Fat-Bottomed Girls_ ended, but the Blaupunkt hissed and started it over again. Aziraphale was sure Crowley was doing it on purpose.

"Now," Crowley went on, taking a roundabout the wrong way. "Tell me the plan."

"You'll be catering. I'll be doing magic." Aziraphale said.

"Warlock doesn't want magic," Crowley cut in.

"He's scarcely old enough to know what he wants," Aziraphale replied loftily. "A well done parlour trick can be very entertaining, and I was quite good, once."

"Yes, once."

"You'll be catering," Aziraphale repeated, ignoring him. "I'll be doing magic. The dog will come, and we'll hope that..."

"All Hell doesn't break loose?"

"Crowley," Aziraphale said reprovingly. "This is not funny."

"Believe me, angel, I'm not laughing."

 _Fat-Bottomed Girls_ started over again as the Bentley rolled to a stop in front of the American Cultural Attaché's house. Aziraphale stabbed viciously at the buttons on the Blaupunkt until he found the one that switched it off.

"What are you doing?" Crowley asked, swatting at his hand. "And what are they doing home?"

"Eating dinner, I suspect," Aziraphale replied sensibly, glancing a the house. The curtains were drawn on the front window, but light glowed through it and shapes seemed to be moving within.

"It's Friday night," Crowley said. "Aren't humans meant to go out on Friday nights?"

"Young, single humans," Aziraphale said. "Not older humans with families and small children."

"He's not that small," Crowley muttered. "He's nearly eleven, and he's the bloody Antichrist."

"Yes, well," Aziraphale murmured. "His parents don't know that, do they?"

"I suppose they don't," Crowley admitted, peering around Aziraphale to frown at the house. He settled back, and the Bentley roared to life again.

"Where are we going, now?" Aziraphale asked. "I thought you wanted to check on Warlock."

"I wanted a look at the backyard, actually," Crowley said. "But I can't now. They're home, and I'm not about to go snooping when their guards are hanging around the place."

Aziraphale glanced at the house again, and made an agreeable noise. The Secret Service bloke loitering by the front door didn't seem the least bit friendly, and he appeared to have taken an interest in them. He started down the walk towards Crowley's car, his hand tucked inside his jacket. The streetlight in front of the Attaché's house exploded at the bulb, plunging the street in darkness, and Crowley pulled away from the curb.

"I hate it when you destroy public property," Aziraphale said testily.

"Better than him destroying us," Crowley replied. "And what about your letterbox, then? It's probably full of post right now that's never going to get picked up." Aziraphale made a disgruntled noise, and Crowley sighed. "All right. All right. I'll fix it before the party."

Aziraphale nodded, somewhat pacified. Crowley would pretend he'd forgotten, come Sunday morning, but Aziraphale would be sure to remind him. And Aziraphale was well aware of his letterbox, thank-you-very-much, and if there was post in it when he got back to the bookshop he'd certainly see that it was moved to a real letterbox.

"Are you hungry?" Crowley asked suddenly.

"Not really," Aziraphale replied. Crowley reached for the Blaupunkt, but Aziraphale cleared his throat, and he let his hand drop. "Are you?"

Crowley made a noncommittal noise and took a corner a bit too sharply. Aziraphale pulled a cassette out of the glovebox, which was allegedly a compilation of Sousa marches, but Crowley shook his head.

"No good," Crowley said. "It's been in here longer than a fortnight."

Crowley took another corner, swerved around an old woman and her dog crossing the street, and drove right past the entrance to the M25.

"Were are we going, then?" Aziraphale asked.

"I don't know," Crowley said. "I thought we could just drive."

"Drive," Aziraphale repeated. His eyes drifted away from the road, and he caught himself looking at Crowley's car, admiring the curve of the windshield and the line of the dash. "Do you like driving?"

"Of course I do," Crowley said. "I wouldn't do it if I didn't. I can get around without a car just as easily as you."

"I know that," Aziraphale said. "I was just curious."

"You've never driven?" Crowley asked.

"No."

Crowley turned to look at Aziraphale, ignoring the road until Aziraphale pointed out that the traffic light was red.

"Would you like to?"

"I'm not sure," Aziraphale answered. He handed Crowley _The Best of Glen Miller_ , but Crowley waved it away. "I don't know how, for one."

"I could teach you," Crowley offered quietly.

"I also don't have a car."

"We've a perfectly good car right here."

Aziraphale started at that, shocked, _The Best of Glen Miller_ slipping out of his hand. He could not have heard Crowley right, because Crowley never allowed other people to drive his car. He got stroppy when Aziraphale chose a restaurant with a valet.

"You want to teach me to drive," Aziraphale said slowly. "In this car."

"If you like," Crowley said. He took a roundabout (the wrong way, again) and stopped the Bentley in the middle of a small, residential street.

Aziraphale hestiated, his eyes darting around nervously. He frowned the surroundings, including all the things like parked cars, lampposts and letterboxes that would no doubt jump out in front of him as soon as he got behind the wheel, and decided this was a bad idea.

"I'd probably hit something," Aziraphale said.

"Nonsense," Crowley returned. "There's nothing to hit."

Aziraphale noted more potential dangers, like trees and rubbish bins, and decided Crowley needed to take off those sunglasses.

Crowley got out of the car, walked around, and opened Aziraphale's door.

"Slide over."

Nervously, Aziraphale complied. He held his arms up, away from the steering wheel, and tried not to look at all the levers and knobs and dials. They were frightening, really, blinking and winking at him, and he didn't have the slightest clue what to do with them.

"Right," Crowley started. "Take a hold of the wheel."

Aziraphale put both hands at the very top of the wheel. His thumbs and index fingers were brushing, and his knuckles were quickly turning white.

"Spread them out a bit," Crowley said.

Aziraphale uncurled his fingers slightly and moved his hands about a centimetre apart.

"More," Crowley insisted. Another centimetre. "More," he said again. Another centimetre.

Sighing, Crowley reached out rearranged Aziraphale's hands himself. Aziraphale gasped, his eyes darting to Crowley's hand, which was still resting on his left wrist, because it was most unusual.

They rarely touched each other, except under Extreme or Dire Circumstances. It was practically part of the Arrangement. In six thousand years, Crowley had touched him about seven times[3]. Two of those times had been during the Spanish Inquisition, and really, the Spanish Inquisition had caused people to do all sorts of strange things.

"What?" Crowley asked. His hand was still on Aziraphale's wrist, and Aziraphale was just sure he was tracing his thumb over the bone there.

"Nothing," Aziraphale said, which was not entirely true, and that was worrying. Crowley was touching him, _and_ he was telling lies, in the same day. The two had to be related somehow, and no good could come from it.

"Right. Now put your foot on that pedal," Crowley instructed. Aziraphale hesitated, and Crowley's hand slipped away from his wrist. "This one," he clarified, patting Aziraphale on the knee. "On that pedal, there."

"Crowley."

"And then you're going to--" Crowley leaned closer, reached past Aziraphale to flip one of the knobs. "Oh, sod this."

Just like that, Crowley kissed him.

For the most part, Aziraphale let him, because he didn't know what else to do. It was rather odd, because he'd never kissed anyone before, and it was quite wet, and really, Crowley ought to keep his tongue to himself.

"What was that about?" Aziraphale asked. Crowley was still awfully close, and for some reason, his hand was on the back of Aziraphale's neck. He did pull back a bit when Aziraphale spoke, but only to tip up his sunglasses and give him a very flat look.

"What do you think that was about?" Crowley asked.

"Well, I don't know," Aziraphale admitted. "It's not something I've given much thought."

"Perhaps you should," Crowley said. He let his sunglasses drop back down and he kissed Aziraphale again.

It wasn't so bad, this time. As a matter of fact, now that Aziraphale thought about it, it was quite nice. When Crowley's tongue nudged at his lips he let his mouth fall open, and he felt a sudden rush of warmth, rushing through him and coiling tightly inside him.

"Oh," Aziraphale said. "I didn't know."

"You just have to make the effort," Crowley said. He leaned in again, but Aziraphale stopped him with a finger over his lips.

"But why?"

The flat look was back, and Crowley didn't have to remove his sunglasses for Aziraphale to see it.

"Angel."

"You..." Aziraphale stammered, his eyes widening. "You--"

"Yes, yes," Crowley said quickly. "Don't expect me to say it, or anything."

"Of course not," Aziraphale murmured. Crowley's lips pursed under his finger, his teeth nipping at the tip, and Aziraphale found he quite liked that, too. "Demons aren't suppose to--"

"No, they're really not," Crowley said. "Now, come here."

"We're in your car," Aziraphale said sensibly.

"I've noticed," Crowley replied.

"We're in the middle of the street," Aziraphale pressed. "People could see us."

Crowley snorted. Then he waved his hand, and every streetlight on the block exploded, just like the one in front of the Attaché's house.

"Crowley," Aziraphale said. "What have I told you about public property?"

"Stop talking, angel."

"Oh, fine," Aziraphale said, leaning in. "But take off those ridiculous sunglasses."

\--

[1] Well, he did want one, but in the idle, absent-minded way that people wanted things like world peace and luggage trolleys with functional wheels.▲  
[2] This was actually an improvement. Prior to 1812, it had been closer to forty-five. Crowley disputed this, of course, but Aziraphale knew better. Celestially coordinated sundials were never wrong.▲  
[3] Eight times, including March 13, 1989, when Crowley stopped Aziraphale from stepping out in front of a lorry. Aziraphale didn't think it counted, because Crowley had actually grabbed him by the collar of his shirt.▲


End file.
